The Mark of the Assassin

The Mark of the Assassin Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: The Mark of the Assassin Read Online Free PDF
Author: Daniel Silva
Tags: thriller, Suspense, Mystery
never discussed it unless she asked him. She was also troubled by the fact that he never called her during the day and never asked her to lunch. When she rang him at the office, a woman answered the phone and dutifully took down the message, but it was a different woman each time. Sometimes it was hours before he returned her call. When he did he could never speak for longer than a minute or two.
    “I’m not an international business consultant, and I’ve never been one,” he began. “I work for the CIA. I had to deceive you until I felt I could trust you enough to tell you. You have to understand, Elizabeth, I didn’t want to hurt you—”
    She reached out and slapped him across the face. “You bastard!” she screamed, so loudly that a group of gulls standing on the beach broke into flight over the water. “You lying bastard! I’ll drive you to the ferry in the morning. You can take the bus back into the city. I never want to see you again. Damn you, Michael Osbourne!”
    She stayed on the beach until the cold drove her inside. The bedroom was dark. She let herself inside without knocking and found him lying on the bed in the darkness. She undressed silently and pressed her body to his. He tried to speak, but she covered his lips with her mouth and said, “Not now. No talking allowed.”
    Afterward, she said, “I don’t care who you are or what you do for a living.” She brushed her mouth against his chest. “I love the person that’s inside here, and I don’t ever want to lose you.”
    “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I couldn’t.”
    “Is Michael Osbourne your real name?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’ve never killed anyone, have you?”
    “No. We only kill people in the movies.”
    “Have you ever seen anyone killed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Can you talk about it?”
    “No, not yet.”
    “You’ll never lie to me, will you, Michael?”
    “I’ll never lie to you, but there will be things I won’t be able to tell you. Can you live with that?”
    “I don’t know yet, but promise me you’ll never lie to me.”
    “I’ll never lie to you.”
    She kissed his mouth. “Why did you become a spy?”
    “We don’t call ourselves spies. We call ourselves case officers.”
    “Fine. So why did you become a case officer?”
    He laughed his quiet, controlled laugh. “I have no idea.”
    Her father thought she was a fool to marry a CIA officer. He had served on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, and while he detested sweeping generalizations in principle he believed the nation’s spies were the biggest collection of kooks and oddballs he had ever seen. With Michael he made an exception. The two men spent a day sailing together on Gardiners Bay, and the senator gave his enthusiastic blessing to the union. There was much about Michael’s work Elizabeth loathed: the long hours, the travel to dangerous places, the fact that she really didn’t know exactly what he did all day. She knew most women would find a marriage like hers unacceptable. She liked to think she was stronger than most women, more self-possessed, more independent. But at times like these she wished her husband had a normal job.
     
    The room was quiet except for a large television set that continuously played an infomercial hosted by a television anchorwoman Elizabeth detested. She wanted something to read, but all the magazines dealt with raising children, not a pleasant subject for a childless woman of forty.
    She tried to change the channel to watch the news, but the television wouldn’t change channels. She tried to turn down the volume, but the volume was preset. She thought, An airliner has just been shot down, and I’m trapped with this insipid blonde trying to sell me baby lotion. She went back to the window and looked for Michael’s car one last time. It was foolish of her to expect him. One of the few things she knew about her husband’s job was that it dealt with counterterrorism. She would be lucky if he even managed
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Dalir's Salvation

Nina Crespo

How to Entice an Earl

Manda Collins

A Play of Knaves

Margaret Frazer

Capture the Wind for Me

Brandilyn Collins

Hannah Howell

Highland Hearts

I Will Have Vengeance

Maurizio de Giovanni, Anne Milano Appel

The Valkyries

Paulo Coelho